Initiative and Experience Affect the Bottom Line

What does technology and telephony have to do with initiative? I was recently reminded with a blow to my wallet how important initiative is to running a profitable business. A supplier’s representative, in an engineering capacity, sold a software upgrade that was impossible because of hardware incompatibly. Why would someone do that? They lack initiative. Many personalities in the technical world are focused upon break/fix and question/answer. They give no thought beyond the question asked or the problem fixed. These individuals are trying to do their job, but a percentage of the people you encounter in the business world will have a lack of initiative. When working with engineers you must take the initiative to ask as many questions as possible, regardless if you know the answers or if the questions seem stupid to ask. The lesson I learned in the fore mention instance was I failed to ask him a simple question. Will this upgrade work on the hardware that you originally provided the customer? I have no doubt his answer would have been “absolutely not”. Understanding how to interface with technical types, by asking questions, will help minimize your chance of making the same mistake I made.